Modern Jazz Voicings: Arranging for Small and Medium Ensembles
 | Average Customer Rating: Recommend The definitive text used for the time-honored Chord Scales course at Berklee College of Music, this book concentrates on scoring for every possible ensemble combination and teaches performers and arrangers how to add color, character and sophistication to chord voicings. Topics covered include: selecting appropriate harmonic tensions, understanding jazz harmony, overcoming harmonic ambiguity, experimenting with unusual combinations and non-traditional alignments, and many more. The accompanying… Product details and pricing info |
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9 Customer Reviews Posted
- Outstanding, and nearly perfect!
- I picked up this book to help me with my Jazz Studies classes. It is amazingly simple and clear, with just enough illustrations to make things easily understood, and a great dose of exercises for practical application. I found it clearly laid out and logically arranged. It's easy to find topics that I'm looking for just from the index, and there aren't pages of unnecessary information to go through before finding the needed resources.
You will need a clear understanding of music theory, but not necessarily of specific jazz, since vocabulary specific to jazz writing is defined and clarified.
The information is laid out as a reference, with information on each instrument, scale, chord, etc., carefully presented for quick reference. - 2008-10-07, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- Maravilhoso - Wonderful
- O Autor dá um banho em matéria de pragmatismo. É um excelente material de ensino e um bom livro para pequenas consultas também. Traduz a didática americana da melhor maneira.
The author makes a goal on pragmatism. It is an excellent material for teaching and a good book for small queries as well. Translates the american-teaching way very best. - 2008-05-20, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- excellent!
- Well, I used old russian sources before, and had a lot of problems with understanding of voicings. I just can say - this book is amazing! Very clear, logical, exercises... if you need to know about how to change basic chords to more complex, this book is your helper.
- 2007-07-17, 0 of 0 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- A helpful book, though my experience with it was a little frustrating
- The material presented is great, and will prove helpful in my study of arranging.
I did have one problem with the book however. In the introduction it states, "Because this book is intended for an expanded audience beyond students enrolled at Berklee, it includes substantial amounts of new text, many new musical examples, solutions to exercises and an accompanying CD."
Yes, it's all there except the solutions to the exercises and I am finding that frustrating. I contacted the publisher and got this reply:
Our Senior Editor clarified that the author meant the exercises begin with a measure of answers filled in for the student. They will clarify the "solutions to exercises" mention in the next printing of the book. My apologies for any confusion this may have caused you.
Anyways, I found this aspect frustrating and a hinderance to my getting the full benefit of this book. - 2007-03-21, 1 of 1 people found this review helpful, Rated:
- A must for anyone interested in arranging.
- This book is absolutely excellent. Like other Berklee Press books, it is easy-to-understand, and it offers exercises after each exercise to ensure that the lessons are etched in your brain through hands-on application. This book demystifies alot concerning voicings and chord scale theory, and I dare say that this and "Reharmonization Techniques" by Randy Felts should be the first books one reads before they read other fine arranging books by Sebesky, Riddle, Mancini and Grove. Many of those books focus more on style, with little if any explaination of jazz/chord theory. Once you get the essentials from this book, you'll gain way more from the other books.
This book starts with a lesson on chord theory, then simple 4 and 5 part voicings, as well as non-chord tone reharmonization. It then proceeds to tell you exactly how to write voicings in fourths, clusters, and upper-structure triads. In addition, it comes with a CD with recorded examples from each chapter of the book, so you can hear the subtle differences between the various voicings and effects.
This book is amazing!
One word of advice (speaking from my own initial misunderstanding): when reading the early chapter detailing "avoid notes", be sure to absorb and understand it as much as possible - it is the foundation upon which the later chapters on specialized voicings are built upon. This is the only part of the book where a decent grasp of jazz chord construction and tensions MAY be needed. In a nutshell, a note is avoided because: a.) It creates an nasty, dissonant interval with an essential chord tone, or b.) It creates an inteval with an essential chord tone that is uncharacteristic of that chord type (ie. a tritone in a Major 7th chord, etc.) - 2006-12-24, 5 of 5 people found this review helpful, Rated:
